Review : Collected works - David Barrett picks out the weird but worthy among the alien detritus

IT IS easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to UFO booksthere are some seriously bad titles out there. But sometimes it's worth grubbing about in the murky depths for treasure.

The UFO Invasion, a collection of articles fromThe Skeptical Inquirer edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr and Joe Nickell (Prometheus Books, $25.95, ISBN 1573921319) is one such rarity. The writers usefully demonstrate that the "official" documents referring to a UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 are almost certainly forgeries. And several important articles show the close resemblance between UFO abduction experiences and hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences, the images and physical states which often occur while falling asleep or waking up.

Most worthwhile are the pieces detailing the appalling dangers inherent in hypnotic regression, which is used to "prove" not only alien abductions, but past lives and, more seriously, sexual abuse. As the ...

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